President Donald Trump attended a parade celebrating Bastille Day, and now he wants to spend millions on a military parade. Does he understand the events and outcome of the event it celebrates?
France was in deep economic and political crisis, on the verge of bankruptcy due to multiple wars—including their support of the American Revolution. Peasants were unhappy with food shortages and high taxes and the nobility resented new taxes from which they had previously been exempt; paralysis of the government resulted.
As Alexis de Tocqueville wrote, though sponsored by the “most civilized classes of the nation,” the revolt was “carried out by its least educated and most unruly elements. Good intentions and savage acts of violence resulted in a belief that people could change history, but at the cost of a generation of upheaval and millions of deaths. [sic]
Today in the United States, the 1 percent is seeing a tax reduction and isn’t on board yet.
Kathleen McAuliffe, Southeast Portland
